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Square-Enix's Kawazu says don't expect a Rad Racer 3DS remake, looks back on Final Fantasy
A portion of 1up interview with Square-Enix's Akitoshi Kawazu...
1UP: That was a game with 3D graphics. Have you thought about bringing that back for the 3DS?
AK: Maybe it's a bit too dated now. [laughs] The 3D in there uses a particular kind of technology.
1UP: Yeah, the glasses with the shutters. In America we never got the shutters, but we did get the game, so it just came with paper glasses.
AK: Yeah. But the 3DS can't actually handle the technology of that game, so we can't do a remake.
1UP: When you were brought over to work on Final Fantasy, what role did you play in the development of the original game? How did your love of board games and other video games help shape the work you did there?
AK: Initially, talking about the genesis of the whole Final Fantasy franchise... [Hironobu] Sakaguchi said, with the first one, "Let's make an RPG." I'm a little foggy on just how much Dragon Quest influenced that decision, but the one thing you can say for certain was that when Dragon Quest came out, it proved to this country that RPGs could sell. Mr. Sakaguchi had wanted to make an RPG long before that, but he couldn't get permission from the company, because the company said, "Well, we're not sure that will sell." But with Dragon Quest proving that a game like that could be successful, we were finally able to get that going. It all started with that.
We were all big fans of Wizardry and Ultima back then. Even though Dragon Quest had come out, in our minds, there still wasn't anything quite comparable to Ultima or Wizardry. That's the kind of game that Sakaguchi and Hiromichi Tanaka and I were interested in. As far as my role in the game went, I was mainly in charge of the battle system and battle sequences. For that, I tried to make it as close to Dungeons & Dragons as possible. That was my goal.
Full interview here
1UP: That was a game with 3D graphics. Have you thought about bringing that back for the 3DS?
AK: Maybe it's a bit too dated now. [laughs] The 3D in there uses a particular kind of technology.
1UP: Yeah, the glasses with the shutters. In America we never got the shutters, but we did get the game, so it just came with paper glasses.
AK: Yeah. But the 3DS can't actually handle the technology of that game, so we can't do a remake.
1UP: When you were brought over to work on Final Fantasy, what role did you play in the development of the original game? How did your love of board games and other video games help shape the work you did there?
AK: Initially, talking about the genesis of the whole Final Fantasy franchise... [Hironobu] Sakaguchi said, with the first one, "Let's make an RPG." I'm a little foggy on just how much Dragon Quest influenced that decision, but the one thing you can say for certain was that when Dragon Quest came out, it proved to this country that RPGs could sell. Mr. Sakaguchi had wanted to make an RPG long before that, but he couldn't get permission from the company, because the company said, "Well, we're not sure that will sell." But with Dragon Quest proving that a game like that could be successful, we were finally able to get that going. It all started with that.
We were all big fans of Wizardry and Ultima back then. Even though Dragon Quest had come out, in our minds, there still wasn't anything quite comparable to Ultima or Wizardry. That's the kind of game that Sakaguchi and Hiromichi Tanaka and I were interested in. As far as my role in the game went, I was mainly in charge of the battle system and battle sequences. For that, I tried to make it as close to Dungeons & Dragons as possible. That was my goal.